Friday, December 11, 2015

Our 2015 Family Holiday Cards (Designed, Sent, Done!)

As you guys know, I design greeting cards on the side, which includes a yearly collection of holiday cards. And while I do continue to give these cards out to friends and family each year, I decided that I wanted to do something different this time. First, I wanted to include a picture of Essley on the card. This is the last holiday season where she'll be our only little one, and I felt inspired to do something special that just included her. Second, I wanted to find a way to make the addressing and sending of the cards itself easier. There is a lot of fidgeting going on when I try to sit in a chair for an extended period of time these days (this baby belly is large, guys), and between that, being busy for work, and preparing for the holidays and baby boy's arrival in a few weeks, addressing, stamping, and sending Christmas cards just felt like another big project to squeeze in.

Around this time, I was introduced to a company called Postable, and my holiday card woes and worries were instantly relieved. For real. It turns out that Postable prints, stamps, addresses and mails all of your cards directly to everyone for you - which, as they say, basically saves you thousands of hours of agony and a life of carpel tunnel. (Or for nearly 9 month pregnant people like me, a whole lot of lower back pain.) I fell in love with their card collection too, which is highly curated and filled with beautiful, stylish designs. I also fell in the love with the fact that the paper they use is 100% post-consumer recycled or tree-free 100% cotton, which my regular readers know is a big deal to me.

It took me a while to decide which card to get, but I ended up picking out this sweet and simple "Peace and Love" design. The process of personalizing the card with Essley's photo and our names in the signature was genuinely one of the easiest experiences I've ever had designing something online. And it took less than a minute! Adding addresses to the address book was super simple too (I just imported a spreadsheet I already had). Once that was done, I chose a font from their collection (I went with one of the "smart" handwriting fonts that honestly looks exactly like my husband's handwriting), checked out, and bam, my 2015 holiday cards were designed, addressed, stamped, and sent in a matter of minutes. Pretty amazing. Oh yeah, and there's no waiting around for weeks to get your cards printed either. Postableprints them right away and they reach your recipients in 3-7 days. It's like a holiday miracle.

Robbie and I are both so happy with the way our holiday cards turned out this year, and I'm so glad that I was able to get the type of card I wanted and find a way to (majorly) simplify the entire process. I can't wait to use Postable again in the future for invitations and thank you cards.

Have you sent out your holiday cards yet this year? Have you ever used Postable?

So cute, Melissa! Ah...I always wish I had it in me to put Oliver and Charolotte on the cover of the cards, but am always caught in an odd feeling of...oh, I don't know. Maybe ALL of us on the cover...I love those silly family photos...the two parents drinking wine on the couch with the kids tied up in christmas lights. HA!

I like to send UNICEF cards. Yep: they're already sent! Takes a long time for the cards to get to Switzerland :)

Cute card, and I like that baby boy is included too! I don't really know yet if I will send out cards, I've made a lot of cards at work for other people, and there are still cards that need to be made. I think I can not bear the thought of making more of them at this point!